


Ghost Towns

by AgentCoop



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Ghosts, Language, Magical Realism, Mild Gore, Sam-Centric, Writer Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 16:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11361333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentCoop/pseuds/AgentCoop
Summary: New Orleans tradition is steeped in magic, mysticism, and voodoo and Sam grows up in the midst of it all. When ghostly figures start appearing around him, he begins to dig deeper.The dead spirits can be a bit frightening, but if he leaves them alone, they don’t seem to bother anyone.The spirit that follows Steve around everywhere though? That one seems dangerous. That one seems too close to the human plane of existence.That one seems too close to real.





	Ghost Towns

**Author's Note:**

> My pinchhit for the RBB is here!
> 
> It has been an incredible pleasure to work with [Lisa](http://misnoart.tumblr.com) on this project! Absolutely check out her accompanying art [HERE](http://misnoart.tumblr.com). There is so much more to it than this short story covers, and you are absolutely going to want to see it because her work is awesome!
> 
> Thank you so much to buckities and velvetjinx for betaing this! And especially thank you to dentigerous for kicking my ass about my poor New Orleans references :)
> 
> And a huge thanks to the amazing [RBB Team](http://capreversebb.tumblr.com). They have made this a wonderful experience.

The first time he hears about it, he’s seven years old. He’s standing on the narrow porch of the old shotgun style house on St. Andrews Street, drinking a glass of warm orange juice. His fingers and mouth are sticky with the syrupy remains, and his eyes are squeezed shut. His Gran always told him he wouldn’t taste the pulp if he drank with his eyes closed. It’s bullshit. He tells her so, and right then she rolls her eyes back in her head as though she’s abruptly done with this little boy’s nonsense, looks directly above his shoulder and says,

“Nathaniel, now what’re you going to do about your boy?”

He’d be scared of the wrath of his Pa, if his Pa weren’t dead and buried five years and counting. He squints across at his Gran, sitting in her porch swing all bundled up in old crocheted blankets as though it weren’t ninety eight degrees and some. She taps her cigarette on the armrest of the seat. She keeps on nodding and talking.

“Yeah, you right! He sure would deserve it, too. Think I have some soap lying round hereabouts.”

At this point, Sam remembers looking over his shoulder and feeling a slight chill as though someone has crept up and is behind him. There’s still no one there. Just the dusty heat, rising off the wood in wavy mirage lines. 

“Gran?”

She looks back at him then, meets his eyes. 

“Samuel, you go on into the house now and get me the bar of soap and a washcloth and you make it quick.”

“Aww, Gran, I’m sorry I said--”

“Don’t argue, young man. Get.”

And he goes, and it tastes foul like it always does, and he spits suds for a full ten minutes. After, he grimaces, but he drinks the rest of his orange juice--eyes closed--and then he sits the glass down on a small metal end table and plops at her feet.

“Who were you talkin’ to?”

“Talking, Samuel.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Who were you _talking_ to?”

“Your Pa.”

He thinks about this for a minute, and watches her rock back and forth slowly, gently, the creaking swing echoing in the muggy air around them.

“But Pa’s dead.”

“That so?”

He stares at her with the earnestness and trust of a child.

“Yup.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s not still here watching. It’s just another plane of existence, Samuel. You’ll see. It’s in your blood. You’ll see.”

“But...” he pauses. Shuts his mouth, then licks the sticky sweetness from the corners of his lips. He figures it doesn’t matter much anyways. Gran’s always been a bit crazy. He’ll let it go. His seven-year-old self has better things to worry about.

He runs down the street to play with the neighborhood kids, and he sweats. He forgets all about the chill on the porch.

It’s years again before he remembers this ever happened.

\---

It’s the year he turns thirteen that he has an encounter of sorts. 

He’s pulling boxes of junk out of the van, hoisting them up on his shoulders, and trudging up the concrete steps to the front door. It’s the first week of October, and it is frigid. He hates this place already, this state, this city, this neighborhood-- _Harlem_. His Mom got a job working for the Schomberg Center, and sure, it’s prestigious, but it’s still in Harlem. She pulled him and his sister out of school right as the year started, and he’s not going to lie, he absolutely resents her for it in the way that only an overly-dramatic teenager can.

He shrugs the heavy box off his shoulders and glares at the old plastic thermometer that’s mounted haphazardly to the brick of the house. Forty-six degrees. Frigid.

Back home in Louisiana, it’s just starting to cool off from the humid, swampy heat. When the air blows through after sunset in New Orleans, it’s like a sigh of relief. The sweat starts to dry on your skin--when you lick your lips you can taste the salty residue. Back home he didn’t own a winter coat.

He turns around and goes back for another box.

There’s a group of kids playing basketball just down the street from him and he pauses to watch them. One of the taller boys swipes the ball and turns quickly, then moves down the street toward the makeshift hoop they’ve set up. A smaller one starts yelling at him. Sam can only make out a few words--something about traveling. The taller kid shoots, watches the ball go through the metal ring, then grabs it and turns back to the group. He walks with direction, he walks with cold purpose. He hauls back and chucks the ball at the kid and Sam can hear that sound, the loud crunch. He can hear the kid screaming.

He sighs and hauls himself back up onto the back of the moving truck. Grabs another box. Fucking Harlem.

The three of them manage to get everything unloaded, and then drive the moving truck to the rental place a few blocks away. On their walk back, he sees that kid again--the tall, frightening one. He’s sitting on the steps of the building adjacent to Sam’s. Sam watches him, and their eyes meet--they glare at each other from across the street. The boy finally gives a nod, then goes back to watching the sidewalk. Sam looks towards his Mom and Sarah--arms entangled, and chatting like sisters. He tries to harden his face into something that feels like superiority, danger. It feels strange.

“Earth to Sam!”

He shakes his head--looks up. Sarah’s rolling her eyes and his Mom is looking at him with concern. They are at the front door of the new house already.

“Sorry. Just thinking.”

Mom’s eyes soften and she smiles a bit.

“Was just asking if you wanted to order pizza tonight while we do some unpacking.”

“Oh. Sure.” He follows them both into the house, then turns and locks, and then deadbolts the door as they make their way towards the kitchen. 

“Pepperoni and olives for you, Sam?” His Mom’s voice echoes strangely down the new hall. He’s not sure if it’s the different insulation, or different building materials, or the fact that they are in Harlem, but something feels off about the house.

“Sure,” he calls back. If he opens his eyes real wide, fuzzes his vision, it almost feels like the white walls are flexing in around him, then back out again. He squints, and they solidify once more. 

“Uh, guys?”

“Yes, honey?” His Mom’s face pokes around the doorframe of the kitchen. She smiles and he can see her teeth. He wants to run to her, wants to hug her, wants to feel her maternal energy and love. He’s almost thirteen. He doesn’t do those things.

“Nothing. I’m gonna go unpack in my room.”

He turns and trudges up the stairs. It’s dark. They still don’t have the electricity on--the guys from the power company can’t make it out until tomorrow. The fading sunlight from the day leeches in through the windows and gives a faint glow to work by.

It’s cold upstairs. Feels even colder than it did outside. Sam pulls his sweatshirt tighter around himself as he reaches the top of the stairs.

There’s a small girl standing in the upper hallway. She’s pale, and full of static--like late night television, or the buzz of a videocassette when the tracking is off. She quirks her head to her left shoulder, inhumanely fast, stop-motion. She opens her mouth and it’s full of black tar, black pus, maggots. No sound comes out.

He shrieks and tumbles backward down the staircase.

It’s the year he turns thirteen that he breaks his leg in three places and spends six months in a plaster cast.

\---

He calls his Gran the second time it happens. 

He’s standing at the busy crosswalk, waiting for the light to change and the cars to roll to a stop. He’s fourteen now--old, wise, mature. He no longer sleeps with the light on in his bedroom thank you very much. He no longer has dreams of maggots crawling out of gaping wounds. 

He’s standing at the intersection and listening to the city noise fade to a buzz all around him when it catches the corner of his eye; a pale, flimsy shape. He turns his head and sees it. The figure approaches and slows to a stop right next to him. Sam slowly turns his head the other direction--looks around to see if any of the crowd of people near have noticed anything strange, have noticed a pulsing, transparent creature. The city continues, beeping, bustling, blaring. He slowly turns his head back and regards the figure standing beside him.

He’s a young man--older than Sam, but about the same height. He has a backpack, and dirty tennis shoes. He’s wearing a neon windbreaker and his socks reach his knees. His eyes look sad. He flickers once, then twice, and his facial features almost wince a moment. Then he looks directly at Sam, shrugs a bit, and steps off the curb.

A small, red, very real sports car darts through the intersection, and the figure explodes into a sudden filmy substance.

Sam realizes his mouth is open. He shuts it, unsure if he said anything at all.

It’s different this time. There’s no out-of-body experience or hallucinogenic fugue state. No oozing fear, no threat. All the same, he is certain through his core that the event happened, and is related to the girl he saw in the hallway.

His Gran has aged exponentially in the two years since Sam’s family moved away. She’s only in her sixties now, but she sounds older over the phone, sicker. He’s unsure of where to begin.

He asks her if she believes in ghost stories.

“You gotta speak up, Samuel. I’m tired, and I’m old, and I’ve got no patience for you beatin’ round the bush. If you want to ask me if what you saw was real, then tell me what you saw and ask me if it was real.”

He sighs. He misses her. He ends up telling her all about that first night in the house--all about how scared he was, and how much he hates it there still. He tells her about school. Tells her about making good grades, but getting in trouble for fighting. He’s black, and he’s angry, and he’s in Harlem. It’s hard for anyone to see him for anything more than the color of his skin and the neighborhood he lives in, and he can’t stand it. He ends with the story of the boy in the street. He pauses, and knows she’s still listening.

“I just. For a moment I wanted to follow him. Wanted to step outside my body and watch my soul dissipate in the air as gracefully as his did.”

He knows it’s melodramatic. But he’s a teenager and melodrama is still an acceptable action.

“Oh, Samuel.”

He hears a crinkling on the end of the line and he knows she’s pulling out one of her signature menthol cigarettes. He can almost smell the sweet tar through the phone line as he hears the familiar click of the lighter.

“I told you, it’s in your blood. They’re real. All real. They’re just poor, unfortunate souls who got stuck too hard to something in this world and can’t move on.”

“So how do I help?”

“You don’t.”

He can feel the skin of his eyes crease in annoyance.

“What’dya mean, you don’t?”

“Samuel, now I _know_ they’re at least teaching you proper grammar up North.”

“Gran!” She’s right and he knows it. “What. Do. You. Mean.”

“Don’t sass.” There’s a pause, presumably for her to inhale more of the sticky smoke. “There’s nothing you can do. They’re just stuck in a loop. Most the time, you won’t even notice they’re around because they can’t get up enough force to make themselves visible. Every now and then though, there’ll be one who’s something more. One who can use your own life force to grow stronger and be more present, even communicate--”

“What, like, suck away my own life?” He’s shriller then he means to be, but shit. That’s… completely unfair.

“I’m not finished, Samuel.” She pauses again, and he waits in anticipation. “It doesn’t hurt you at all. They just hold on to you a little tighter when they manifest, is all. There’s gotta be something connecting you to them in the first place--something like love, or trauma. It’s what a poltergeist is. But it’s also what happens when someone you love very much dies. It’s what happened with your father. He got stuck in this world because he couldn’t let go of the love he had for you, your sister and your Mom.”

“So why didn’t he _haunt_ Mom, or whatever.”

“Powers never seemed to manifest themselves in her. It’s not an ‘every-member-of-the-family-has-it’ kind of power. Only seems to pop up every once in awhile. Once in a generation. That sort of thing.”

“Well, who else can do it? Who else sees them? Have they ever hurt one of us?”

She laughs then, a slow, rumbling sound. God, he misses her.

“It’s not like we have a journal lying around of ghost-sighting documentation. I know my Great-Grandfather used to talk about it. Everyone just figured he was crazy.”

“Does Mom know?”

“She knows that I think I can talk to spirits. But it’s New Orleans. Walk two steps and you’ll find someone around who fancies themselves the expert on paranormal activity. Hell, maybe they are. If it’s in our blood, don’t mean it’s not in someone else's. I wouldn’t go on about it around her though. She got a bit touchy on the subject after I started communicating with Nathaniel.”

“You don’t say.”

“You’re a sarcastic little shit, you know that, Samuel?”

He laughs--actually laughs--and it’s deep, from his belly. It feels like something is released then, something powerful, and human, like a weight has dropped. He misses Louisiana, and he misses his Gran, but he has Mom, and he has Sarah, and he’s not crazy.

He is not crazy.

They talk more, long past when his Mom gets home from work. He tells stories of the kids in his class, and he brags about his mile time. He reads a short excerpt from a story he’s writing for English class, and he listens to Gran tell him about the crazy neighbors with the booming bass in their basement. 

That night he creeps from the warmth of his bed into the dark hallway. He sits down on the wooden floor with his back up against the peeling paint of the wall, and he waits for his eyes to focus.

“I’m here,” he whispers. “I’m here if you ever need me to see you, to know you’re around.” He waits with his knees pulled up to his chest, and watches the darkness in silence. He listens to his breathing and counts his heartbeats. 

The heavy blackness lightens slowly by increments. Morning dawn finds him curled up and gently snoring--face pressed against the baseboards.

\---

His Gran passes away the next winter. His family makes it back to New Orleans for the funeral. It’s a small gathering--nothing like the upbeat, boisterous party they threw when his Pa passed. Sam stands by the cemetery plot long after the coffin is lowered. He nods his head briefly when his Mom tells him that they’re all headed back to the house for food and chat. She places her hand gently on his shoulder, then leaves.

She knows he and Gran were close.

He watches the sun set on the horizon. The light reflects off the cold concrete pathways and for an instant, the stone crypts seem to sparkle. Then the moment passes. The cemetery seems such a bare and lonely place to spend eternity. 

The air turns chilly as the sky darkens. He notices a small movement near him and looks away from the fresh grave. His Pa stands there now, wisping and fraying in the breeze. Sam swallows, and watches him.

He looks tall, like Sam remembers. Tall and elegant. Sam thinks for a moment, then breaks the clotted silence.

“Why’d you pick her, and not Mom?”

As soon as he speaks, he feels poorly about the question. It’s not really fair. He doesn’t know much about love yet, but he figures the romantic kind is a hard thing to balance against the love a child holds for his mother.

His father stares at him. He looks cold, sinister. He looks sad. He shrugs.

Sam looks back at the fresh mound of dirt, carelessly thrown on top of the casket by the grave digger. The sky is a purple hue--the death throws of the daylight. He sighs.

“Will you watch over her?”

His father nods once, curtly.

Sam kneels down and trails his fingers through the fresh dirt. He holds them up to his nose--inhales the scent of the earth. 

“I’ll miss you.” It’s spoken like verse. It’s spoken like a prayer.

He stands, and leaves the graveside.

The ghost’s flickering presence never solidifies, but it also never disappears.

\---

There are only eighteen other freshmen admitted into the Creative Writing program at Tulane. They are a strange and quirky bunch, and while it seems like he certainly is ahead of most in the social game, Sam thinks he’s finally found his _people_. The campus is big, and beautiful, but it’s also in New Orleans and he feels like he has returned, he can breathe, he can relax.

His Mom is so proud of him. He knows she brags about him any chance she gets to anyone who will stop to listen. 

He meets Natasha on the first morning of orientation for the specialist program. She’s perched atop a desk, picking at the dark lavender polish that coats her short, chewed nails.

“This seat taken?” Sam’s already lowering himself into the desk behind her as he speaks.

Nat turns around, one eyebrow raised. “Oh, thrilling. Another preppy, wanna-be writer.”

Sam looks her up and down slowly, grins as he leans back in his seat and spreads his feet out. His laces gleam white against his new tennis shoes. He deserves the comment. He does look preppy. He also looks damn fine.

He says as much.

Nat’s a character. She’s headstrong and chaotic and he loves that about her. Every so often, she’ll look off in the distance as though taking in the entire world around her, sigh, and then stop him in his tracks with some horrible and off-putting sarcastic remark. 

She reminds him of his Gran.

He doesn’t tell her that of course. Nat would probably come at him swinging and he’s pretty damn sure he wouldn’t be the one emerging victor. They form a careful connection though, and as days turn to weeks turn to months, he’s pretty confident that it’s friendship. 

\---

It’s the blond-haired guy with the quiet smile and the blue eyes who gives him pause. Sam watches him frequently. They share a Philosophy class, and in the hall, Steve rarely speaks. When he does, it is in a small, subdued voice, but it carries and holds the attention of the other students. Outside of the classroom, Sam frequently sees him sitting with his back to one of the many drooping oak trees that litter the campus. Steve’s always got a sketchpad with him and always seems to be lost, eyes wandering as he draws.

Sam’s not sure what to make of him.

Sam wants to speak to him.

Sam avoids any contact with the guy because of the lingering presence that seems to surround him. Steve just feels lonely and sad. Even in their lecture course, when he enters, Sam can feel a bit of a chill.

He’s carrying someone with him and it makes the flesh on Sam’s arms raise.

He asks Natasha about him one afternoon, and she gives him a coy, smug little look as she looks Sam up and down.

“What exactly do you want to know?”

“Jesus, Nat. Nothing like whatever it is you’re thinking. Just want to know his story. He’s interesting. He’s…”

“Kind of a know-it-all, pain in the ass sort?”

“What? No, I just keep seeing him around. Do you know him?”

She shakes her head, and runs her fingers through her hair. “Nope. Not really. He’s just in my Statistics class. Just seems the sort who always has the answers.”

“And that makes him an ass?”

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. I just like people who keep their mouth shut. Unlike you.”

Sam elbows her in the back as he stands and she scowls at him. He finishes packing up his bag, then turns back in her direction.

“I’m headed down to the river for a bit. Need to get some work done on this story this afternoon. I really want to have it ready to workshop by next week.”

She nods at him as he turns to walk down the steps. He’s almost out of earshot when she calls out again.

“Why don’t you just talk to him?”

Sam just shrugs, then gives her a wave as he heads off down to his favorite writing space.

\---

He can hear the burbling of the water as he shoulders off his pack and sits down on the rocky embankment. His feet dangle over the edge and he watches for a moment--the gentle swaying of the trees in the wind, the careful song of the warbler coming from above. It’s hot. The heat is an ever-present weight down here in New Orleans, but it’s a comfortable thing--not oppressive like a Harlem Winter. 

Sam thinks of this spot on the riverbank as his. He knows it’s not--knows it’s just his ego pushing forward to even think it. But he’s never seen anyone else sitting out here, and it is somewhat hidden behind a dense grove of cypress trees. He thinks better here in the fresh air. He writes better. Sam wiggles his toes a bit, then takes out his notebook. 

There is something special about committing his words and ideas to paper in simple ballpoint pen. Natasha tells him he’s crazy for not using a laptop, or keyboard. But Sam wallows in verbs, he tastes the syllables and feels the beat of his sentences while he writes. He needs the time that handwriting allows him to feel for the next phrase.

There’s also something unflinchingly romantic about committing words to paper.

He’s deeply distracted by the scene he is working on when a sudden crunch on rock behind him sends the warbler flying out of the branches. Sam turns to see Steve standing there, looking surprised and unsure.

Sam offers the first olive branch.

“Hey, man?”

“I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize there was someone else here, or that someone else liked to sit right there...I don’t know why I didn’t think about it, of course someone else would--”

“Wow.” Sam stares at him as Steve stutters to a stop. “It’s fine. I don’t own the place.” He waves his hand a bit and turns back to his notebook, trying desperately to return to the placid stream of consciousness that was interrupted moments ago. “Sit wherever.”

Steve carefully steps onto the stone barrier. There is a chill breeze that follows him, and Sam shivers unconsciously. 

“Sorry. I really didn’t mean to bother you. I just like to draw out here as well.”

Sam sighs, and puts his pen down. “You weren’t bothering me--” 

he freezes.

Steve’s still standing there, looking down at him. But there is a figure standing behind him--an ethereal, dangerous-looking being. He can’t quite make out any characteristics yet; it is still out of focus. Sam gulps, then looks back at Steve.

“Um, right. You weren’t bothering me.” He throws his notebook back in his bag and hops up quickly. “Have at it. I gotta get to class.”

“Oh. Sure. Of course.”

Steve’s voice is musical, but authoritative. It still sounds sad and searching. Sam shudders and brushes past him, and the brief contact is like ice. 

He hurries back to his dorm room and tries not to think about the wraith that seems to be attached to Steve. He repeats his Gran’s words over and over in his head, “It won’t hurt you, it just holds on tighter to manifest. It won’t hurt you. It won’t hurt you.”

He feels ridiculous. But as he closes his door behind him, he can hear his heartbeat thundering in his ears, and his left hand is still shaking ever so slightly.

\---

He starts feeling a sort of physical sensation whenever Steve is near. It gets colder, Sam starts to shake, and he gets this prickling, creeping awareness that crawls up the back of his neck. Inevitably, if he stops what he is doing and looks around, he will see Steve--he will see the shadow.

It starts becoming clearer--more present. He’s not really sure what that means. He wishes more than ever that he could just call his Gran and ask, because who else is going to listen to him run his mouth about some random ghost who wants to show itself?

A week after the incident at the river, he watches the spirit sit next to Steve in the lecture hall. He can see features--can tell it’s a man now.

Another week after that and Natasha comments about it in the dorm cafeteria.

Go talk to him, she says.

Go sit with him.

She doesn’t understand when Sam bows his head and murmurs under his breath.

_Steve’s not alone. He’s never been alone._

A month after, it’s clear that the spirit is wearing a hooded sweatshirt. It has shoulder length, greasy-looking hair that is blowing in the wind.

They are inside. There is no wind. Sam starts to wonder about the other planes of existence his Gran used to mention and what the weather might be like there.

It’s mid-November when Sam finally ventures back to his spot on the embankment. Many of the students have headed home for break, and it’s chilly in the way that New Orleans gets chilly--a stiff breeze pushes through the steady oaks, but the sun shines on. He’s behind on his writing because he’s been distracted. He can’t push past nightmares of his father leaving Gran’s graveside. Nightmares about the loneliness of eternity. 

He’s not expecting to find Steve there again. He’s not expecting the sudden surge of anger he feels.

“Come on, man. Seriously?”

Steve looks up, startled, and Sam can see him smudge the charcoal he was working with, leaving a dark scar on the page.

“Aw, shit.”

Sam’s briefly taken aback by the intensity in Steve’s voice.

“Sorry. You just startled me!” Steve blinks a few times and Sam still stands his ground. The man-figure uncurls himself lazily from the base of a nearby tree and creeps up behind Steve. He’s missing his left arm and Sam can see the ripped stump of it leak a viscous, tar-like fluid. He follows the drip down, where it puddles in a dark pool by the ghost’s feet. The pool never grows or shrinks. Sam watches. It vibrates a bit with each drop, but seems contained to the alternate plane. 

“Samuel, right?”

He looks back over to Steve. Tries to ignore the menacing scowl on the figure’s face.

“Sam.”

He’s not afraid. He sits down next to Steve. He doesn’t look over his shoulder. He breathes.

Nothing happens.

“Where you from, Steve?”

“Oh. Brooklyn, originally.”

They chat for a few minutes--bond over a mutual hatred of the New York Jets and love of the Knicks. Steve’s actually pretty interesting. As soon as he finds out that Sam is in the Creative Writing program and working on a short story involving New Orleans voodoo and the supernatural, he opens up his own interest in all things haunted. He laughs a bit while Sam attempts to show off his rock-skipping talent and winds up red-faced and wet. 

The breeze picks up, and Sam starts to shiver. He knows he’s pushing his luck. He extends his hand to Steve.

“It was nice to meet you, Steve. I’ll be catching you around.”

“Real great to talk with you, Sam.”

They shake hands, and Sam turns--regards the ghost one last time. He hasn’t moved from his post at the tree. Sam raises his eyebrows and looks him up and down.

The ghost flips him off with his one good hand.

It feels like it might be the start of something. He walks back to the buildings leisurely, and his hands are steady the whole way.

\---

It goes on like this.

They meet up at least once a week. They typically stash some food from the dining hall in their packs, then sneak out the doors and make their way down to the river. Sometimes they both sit--Steve with his sketch pad, and Sam with his notebook. Sometimes, in a stunning display of aerial acrobatics, Sam ends up in the river. Sometimes they walk along the rocky bank and talk about New York. 

Every time Sam says ‘goodbye’, he looks up, over Steve’s shoulder. Every time the ghost glares at him. It doesn’t much matter. Sam’s stopped feeling so cold.

\---

The first time he mentions it to Steve, they’re nineteen years old. Sam’s standing on the river’s edge with a handful of rocks, tossing them one after another and listening to the hollow plunk they make as soon as they hit water. He tells Steve about his Gran, and where she’s buried. He tells him about his Pa, about how much he misses them both. He tells Steve a tale filled with magic, and mysticism and he weaves it into the story of his life.

Steve nods and listens. He doesn’t speak much. He understands. He believes.

Sam stops for a moment to gather himself. He can feel the beginning of the summer heat emerging from the dying spring. He looks Steve right in the eyes and doesn’t blink.

“What is his name?”

Steve doesn’t seem thrown, or surprised. Steve is solid. Sam likes that about him.

“His name was James. I called him Bucky.”

Sam nods. “Bucky. Okay.”

He looks over towards the trees. Bucky slips forward and places a hand on Steve’s shoulder. Sam can see Steve shiver slightly, then relax. He looks lost in a memory. 

Sam glances back up at the ghost. 

Bucky smiles.

 


End file.
